in which swimmers far and near were moving, some making steady headway, some treading water, others seen in the act of breaking to the surface or going under, and many submerged, their faces loosened into wavering pink blurs as they drowned at their desks. But the illusion was quickly dispelled on walking further into the office, for here the air was of an overwhelming dryness—it was, as Frank Wheeler often complained, "enough to dry your God damned eyeballs out."
For all his complaints, though, he was sometimes guiltily aware of taking a dim pleasure in the very discomfort of the office. When he said, as he'd been saying for years, that in a funny way he guessed he would miss old Knox when he quit, he meant of course that it was the people he would miss ("I mean hell, they're a pretty decent crowd; some of them, anyway") and yet in all honesty he could not have denied a homely affection for the place itself, the Fifteenth Floor. Over the years he had discovered slight sensory distinctions between it and all the others of the building; it was no more or less pleasant, but different for being "his" floor. It was his bright, dry, daily ordeal, his personal measure of tedium. It had taught him new ways of spacing out the hours of the day—almost time to go down for coffee; almost time to go out for lunch; almost time to go home— and he had come to rely on the desolate wastes of time that lay between these pleasures as an invalid comes to rely on the certainty of recurring pain. It was a part of him.
"Morning, Frank," said Vince Lathrop.
"Morning, Frank," said Ed Small.
"Morning, Mr. Wheeler," said Grace Mancuso, who worked for Herb Underwood in Market Research.
His feet knew where to turn at the aisle marked sales promotion, and they knew how many steps would bring him past the first three cubicles and where he would have to turn again to enter the fourth; he could have done it in his sleep.
"Hello," said Maureen Grube, who served as floor receptionist and worked in Mrs. Jorgensen's typing pool. She said it in a frankly flattering, definitely feminine way, and as she swayed aside to let him pass he wanted to put his arm around her and lead her away somewhere (the mail room? the freight elevator?) where he could sit down and take her on his lap and remove her royal blue sweater and fill his mouth with one and then the other of her breasts.
It wasn't the first time this idea had occurred to him; the difference was that this time it had no sooner occurred to him than he thought, Why not?
His feet had led him to the entrance of the cubicle whose plastic nameplate read:
J.R. ORDWAY
F.H. WHEELER
and he paused there, one hand hooked over the rim of the plate glass, to turn and look back at her. She was all the way down to the end of the aisle, now, her buttocks moving nicely in her flannel skirt, and he watched her until she disappeared beneath the waterline of partition tops to take her place at the reception desk.
Take it easy, he counseled himself. A thing like this would need a little planning. The first thing to do, he knew, was to go on inside and say good morning to Jack Ordway and take off his coat and sit down. He did that, instantly shutting out his view of everything beyond the cubicle walls, and as he settled himself sideways at his desk with his right foot automatically toeing open a lower drawer and using its edge as a foot rest (the pressure of his shoe over the years had worn a little saddle in the edge of that particular drawer), he allowed a slow wave of delight to break over him. Why not? Hadn't she given him every possible encouragement for months? Undulating past him in the aisle like that, bending close over his desk to hand him a folder, smiling in a special, oblique way that he'd never seen her use on anyone else? And that time at the Christmas party (he could still remember the taste of her mouth) hadn't she trembled in his arms, and hadn't she whispered, "You're
For all his complaints, though, he was sometimes guiltily aware of taking a dim pleasure in the very discomfort of the office. When he said, as he'd been saying for years, that in a funny way he guessed he would miss old Knox when he quit, he meant of course that it was the people he would miss ("I mean hell, they're a pretty decent crowd; some of them, anyway") and yet in all honesty he could not have denied a homely affection for the place itself, the Fifteenth Floor. Over the years he had discovered slight sensory distinctions between it and all the others of the building; it was no more or less pleasant, but different for being "his" floor. It was his bright, dry, daily ordeal, his personal measure of tedium. It had taught him new ways of spacing out the hours of the day—almost time to go down for coffee; almost time to go out for lunch; almost time to go home— and he had come to rely on the desolate wastes of time that lay between these pleasures as an invalid comes to rely on the certainty of recurring pain. It was a part of him.
"Morning, Frank," said Vince Lathrop.
"Morning, Frank," said Ed Small.
"Morning, Mr. Wheeler," said Grace Mancuso, who worked for Herb Underwood in Market Research.
His feet knew where to turn at the aisle marked sales promotion, and they knew how many steps would bring him past the first three cubicles and where he would have to turn again to enter the fourth; he could have done it in his sleep.
"Hello," said Maureen Grube, who served as floor receptionist and worked in Mrs. Jorgensen's typing pool. She said it in a frankly flattering, definitely feminine way, and as she swayed aside to let him pass he wanted to put his arm around her and lead her away somewhere (the mail room? the freight elevator?) where he could sit down and take her on his lap and remove her royal blue sweater and fill his mouth with one and then the other of her breasts.
It wasn't the first time this idea had occurred to him; the difference was that this time it had no sooner occurred to him than he thought, Why not?
His feet had led him to the entrance of the cubicle whose plastic nameplate read:
J.R. ORDWAY
F.H. WHEELER
and he paused there, one hand hooked over the rim of the plate glass, to turn and look back at her. She was all the way down to the end of the aisle, now, her buttocks moving nicely in her flannel skirt, and he watched her until she disappeared beneath the waterline of partition tops to take her place at the reception desk.
Take it easy, he counseled himself. A thing like this would need a little planning. The first thing to do, he knew, was to go on inside and say good morning to Jack Ordway and take off his coat and sit down. He did that, instantly shutting out his view of everything beyond the cubicle walls, and as he settled himself sideways at his desk with his right foot automatically toeing open a lower drawer and using its edge as a foot rest (the pressure of his shoe over the years had worn a little saddle in the edge of that particular drawer), he allowed a slow wave of delight to break over him. Why not? Hadn't she given him every possible encouragement for months? Undulating past him in the aisle like that, bending close over his desk to hand him a folder, smiling in a special, oblique way that he'd never seen her use on anyone else? And that time at the Christmas party (he could still remember the taste of her mouth) hadn't she trembled in his arms, and hadn't she whispered, "You're
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